Lick Observatory

In the 3.5 billion-year history of life on planet Earth, a century seems barely mentionable and a decade seems insignificant—but the new revelation of a project involving a Russian billionaire, three UC Berkeley researchers and $100 million just may have laid the groundwork for this decade’s shot at eternal distinction.

For everyone who cares about saving the University of California’s cash-strapped Lick Observatory, news that Google is donating $1 million is a boon in more ways than one. Not only will the contribution—a full third of Lick’s current barebones operating budget—support the observatory’s day-to-day activities, but it’s already inspiring other donors to chip in.

Lick Observatory has received a reprieve after all. The University of California has reversed its plan to pull funding from the world’s first mountain-summit observatory.

Instead the UC system will provide continued funding (next year, that amounts to $1.5 million), an amount that astronomers characterized as sufficient but frugal. To achieve its full potential, the university’s only fully-owned observatory will still need outside donations.

A move to pare a modest $1.8 million from UC’s operations budget has blown up into a public relations storm, with the fury directed at the Office of the President. That’s because the savings would result from halting funding for Mount Hamilton’s Lick Observatory, the world’s first permanent mountain summit observatory and a facility still responsible for major cosmological findings—most recently the discovery of scads of earth-like exoplanets.

Lick Observatory, an astronomical research facility on Mt. Hamilton for the University of California, has been in operation since 1888. This summer, the Friends of Lick Observatory—an association that provides fundraising and professional support—is introducing a new public outreach program.

Posted on July 23, 2013 - 3:08pm

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